As a native Chernian, my island was relatively unknown until the ‘nekzarik’. Let me paint you a picture:

The island was poor, but as it was poor there was no one to compare to. Everyone was in and around a similar level of wealth, so we suffered and celebrated together. The cities were filled with what we needed but not much entertainment, so as a child the main source of exploration was of the vast woodland. All settlements were just breaks in forest, so in between Vybor and the neighbouring woodland was nothing but thick, dense forestation. Furthermore, dangerous animals didn’t exist on Chernarus, only omnivores. This meant playing out was safe. Nothing was going to eat you and no one was going to steal you as they’d be caught very quickly.

Me and my best friend, Rezinov, were fascinated by the local airfield and military base. As an obscure Russian island, we were prime military land. We often watched drills from the trees and watched planes take off from the hills. We both decided we wanted to become soldiers when we grew up.

Little did we know that in our first month of training, our island would be swept by a flesh eating infection that turns anyone infected into what can only be described as a zombie hungry for uninfected human.

As we had been obsessed with the military our whole lives, we were far ahead when we first joined. We had been waiting til we were 21 so we could officially join, but had been training since the age of 14. We were pretty much competent enough to pass the relevant tests already, but had to do a 6 month course minimum to qualify to take it. Little did we know how useful the training we had undertaken all our lives would be.

When the infection hit, no one at the military base was affected. We held it for around a month, but were overrun.

One way you could conceptualise your personality is an arm wrestle. The two challengers are mini personalities within yourself, and the combination of the two manifests itself as your personality.

The first challenger is the instinctual element. This part of you requires satisfaction of your animalistic desires. Aggression, sex, eating, anything of instant gratification. All it wants to do is consume as quickly and as much as possible. Allowing this to dominate the arm wrestle will mean that everything is done in service of quick pleasure and expedience. The meaning of anything at all is banished as the world is seen as a place of opportunities to obtain pleasure, not a place where anything means anything at all. If things did have meaning, the consequences of actions would have to be considered, but when there is no meaning the consequences don’t matter. Allowing this to dominate results in a highly nihilistic output.

The second challenger is the inner critic. Everyone is aware of the idea of their own potential. It’s a place you could be if you did everything that you should do. You are also aware that within you is a mini-personality that every time you do not do something that is in service of your potential, will have no qualms letting you know about it. This strives for perfection. Anything below perfection is worthy of critique, meaning almost everything is. There are two portions to this sub-personality which are the creation of the ideal and then the use of guilt when it is not adhered to. This personality wants to punish you at every chance for not being as you should be. Imagine Jiminy Cricket (yes, from Pinocchio) fulfilling the same role he does in the film, but for you personally. Allowing this to dominate leaves you in permanent angst, depression and anxiety due to not being able to achieve much of what is required.

These two arm wrestling sub-personalities are refereed by you. Your job is to mediate them. At points they can serve useful functions. Aggression under control is a powerful tool, as is a kick up the ass when you’re not doing lots of the things you should be. The aim of the referee is to keep the two arm wrestlers at equilibrium, only tilting ever so slightly. When the referee does not do his job and one begins to dominate, then issues in the game arise as one is tyrannised by the other.

The instinctual element represents chaos, the critical element represents order, and the referee is aiming to keep the two wrestlers toeing the line between the two.

If the calendar were to read “today is the day you die”, how would you feel? Would you panic or would you be okay? Why would someone panic, there’s nothing they can do about it now? This is why:

They panic because they know they haven’t done everything they should have been doing, and now they’re at the end of their run they’re worried they’ve wasted their life. They have been putting things off, not fixing things that need fixing, not speaking their truth. As a result, the life they have always promised themselves to attain has not been attained and therefore they panic. They did not achieve what they know they could have, fulfilled their potential you could say, and there is no second chance to put it right.

When a person talks of what they’d do with their last day on earth, they recount endless cliches of spending time with loved ones, appreciating nature and going on a coke filled bender one last time. I think these things are ill-judged as they are predicated upon the idea that one will be happy with their life. If one does feel satisfied, then maybe they will have the peace of mind to do these things. But realistically, how many people are going to truly be happy with the way they have lived. Who is going to be able to come to terms with the fact their life is ending and they did not make the utmost of it and have no chance to turn that around?

I imagine many people’s last day, should they know when it is, would be taken up by reflection. Recounting on every little action, decision and effect they’ve had. Did I make the right choice, did I make up for the mistake, do these people know that I still think about them all the time? If people knew the day they were to die, instead of being peaceful I imagine it would be filled with existential angst.

Although the prompt provides nothing more than mental gymnastics rather than a plausible event, these postulations are very real for many people and have an antidote:

Start doing things you’re putting off. Stop lying and start speaking your being into existence. Try to resolve things you know you want to resolve. Or don’t, and risk having your last moments filled with panic, anxiety and guilt at the fact so much was left not done and unsaid.

Making it from our base in the dam to the town of Elektrozad was a weekly occurrence. Doing it more frequently would represent too high a risk, but too infrequently would represent the equal but opposite risk of starvation. The risks were tenfold; infection, bandit gangs, ghillie snipers and zombies. Instead of banding together, as you would expect of a country where the group is paramount, it had become every man for himself.

Dilkov and I walked along the tree line to mask our visibility. Concealing yourself was of the utmost importance as the gangs and the snipers were not necessarily after your resources. The apocalypse had them filled with nihilism and resentment for the world and therefore they hit back at existence in the best way they could postulate: making sure as many people die as possible.

In a way I could understand it and was even tempted many a time. These people have most likely seen family members die at the hands of other people and believe that the best solution is the join them. It makes sense. There is only a finite period on which human survival on our island is realistic, therefore acting as if there is meaning is difficult as you really will not have to face the consequences. No one is coming to save us so you will never be held accountable. People are just making justice prevail as they see fit.

As we walked along the tree line Dilkov scanned the hill with his binoculars. Having such chronic anxiety regarding being hit with a .50cal bullet for so long meant that we were adept to seeing Ghillie snipers outlines where the untrained eye could not. Dilkov signalled with his palm to get behind a tree. I squinted to see what he was seeing. It was a sniper, moving position. We watched him set up on the hill opposite us. As he was setting up, we begun to jog further south-west so we could head towards Elektro but also over the peak of the hill and out of the snipers line of sight.

As we got over the hill, a thud kicked up the mud between us. That was a sighting shot. We sprinted over the hill and to safety.